Transportation and Communications

The relative isolation of the Comoro Islands had made
air
traffic a major means of transportation. One of President
Abdallah's accomplishments was to make Comoros more
accessible by
air. During his administration, he negotiated agreements
to
initiate or enhance commercial air links with Tanzania and
Madagascar. The Djohar regime reached an agreement in 1990
to
link Moroni and Brussels by air. By the early 1990s,
commercial
flights connected Comoros with France, Mauritius, Kenya,
South
Africa, Tanzania, and Madagascar. The national airline was
Air
Comores. Daily flights linked the three main islands, and
air
service was also available to Mahoré; each island had
airstrips.
In 1986 the republic received a grant from the French
government's CCCE to renovate and expand Hahaya airport,
near
Moroni. Because of the absence of regularly scheduled sea
transport between the islands, nearly all interisland
passenger
traffic is by air.

More than 99 percent of freight is transported by sea.
Both
Moroni on Njazidja and Mutsamudu on Nzwani have artificial
harbors. There is also a harbor at Fomboni, on Mwali.
Despite
extensive internationally financed programs to upgrade the
harbors at Moroni and Mutsamudu, by the early 1990s only
Mutsamudu was operational as a deepwater facility. Its
harbor
could accommodate vessels of up to eleven meters' draught.
At
Moroni, ocean-going vessels typically lie offshore and are
loaded
or unloaded by smaller craft, a costly and sometimes
dangerous
procedure. Most freight continues to be sent to Kenya,
Reunion,
or Madagascar for transshipment to Comoros. Use of Comoran
ports
is further restricted by the threat of cyclones from
December
through March. The privately operated Comoran Navigation
Company
(Société Comorienne de Navigation) is based in Moroni, and
provides services to Madagascar. )

Roads serve the coastal areas, rather than the
interior, and
the mountainous terrain makes surface travel difficult. In
1987
the total length of roads in Comoros was about 750
kilometers,
including both paved and dirt roads.

In large part thanks to international aid programs,
Moroni
has international telecommunications service. Telephone
service,
however, is largely limited to the islands' few towns.
Some 3,000
telephones were in use in 1991.

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